I recently got a XenonDepot Xtreme HID kit with two sets of bulbs. One set was the H11 4300k Philips 85122, and the other set was the H11 5000K XenonDepot bulbs. One good thing to note about this kit is the H11 bulbs do not create ground shadow. The only reason why people order H11B bulbs is due to ground shadow issues. The bulbs that come with the XenonDepot HID kits do not have this ground shadow issue, so there are no H11B bulbs. The H11 bulbs are absolutely perfect for our application!
First: what makes a good HID kit good? The most obvious answer is if the bulb colors are true. Meaning when you order a 5000K bulb, is it really going to be pure white with no blue and no yellow? Or is a 6000K bulb going to be white with a slight blue hue? Etc. But to me, there are other things that go into making a good kit good. The quality of the kit shows itself in the details in my experience. Some other things I look at are: 1) How well are the HID kit components packed? 2) What protective measures are taken to protect the bulbs when getting jostled during shipping? 3) How are the connectors? Do they fit tight? 4) How are the wires protected?
So lets start with my initial impressions. The first thing I did when the UPS man dropped the package off was slightly shook it. I was feeling to see how tightly it was packed in preparation for the beating the box was going to take during shipping. As soon as I picked up the box, I was impressed with the weight of it. Not heavy, but definitely solid feeling. UPS label said 5lbs. Gave it the shake test – not a single sound. So then I opened up the box. No wonder why there was no jostle, it is a perfect fit:
Then open up the black box. Everything was packed very tightly. No jiggle room.
In the above picture, my 2 slim digital ballasts in white boxes are on the left, my XenonDepot 5000K bulbs in a white box are on the right, my 4300K Philips 85122 rebased bulbs are in the middle of the white boxes, and dual harnesses are in the front of the white boxes and Philips bulbs.
Here are the components included in the XenonDepot Xtreme HID kit:
Here are the components included in the XenonDepot Xtreme HID kit with Philips bulbs:
Detail picture of the ballast:
Detail picture of the bulb:
The bulbs were protected very well for shipping to ensure they did not get damaged. I am definitely satisfied with the level of protection.
Pictures of bulb protection:
To sum up my first impression thoughts: Impressive. If you order the Xtreme kit with Philips bulbs you even get a Philips manual, which reassures you that you are getting genuine Philips capsules. The bulbs are protected well, and the kit even comes with 3M double-sided tape and zip ties! I was impressed with the packaging. To me, when a company puts so much thought into the packaging and securing of their product, it shows they have a product they are really proud of. The ballasts have a really nice weight to them. Not crazy heavy, but they feel very sturdy, like you could mount them on a quad and have no issues. I’m feeling good about the kit.
Something to note about the Xtreme kit: it uses a dual relay system, so the kit comes with two relays. This is so if anything happens, you don’t lose both your headlights. Makes sense. You do not need to use the harnesses, and anyone who knows me knows that I did not use them! The kit works perfectly without them. But I assessed their overall quality, and would have been confident in them if I did decide to use them. Here are some pictures for reference (check out how well the wires are protected):
Now moving into the garage. I was trying to really dig into the kit a bit. Reading the installation manual, I read you can take the prongs out of the plug. This is in case of reverse polarity; you can remove the metal prongs, switch them, and reinsert them. This allows you to get a really good connection between the ballast and the car’s plug. All my other previous kits you were forced to just flip the plug and hope it stays or electrical tape the connection. What is even better is the manual even tells you how. Alright, lets do it and check out the prongs:
Sweet! Those red crinkle looking things are water and weatherproofing. No water or dirt can get in there. So far all I am seeing is quality.
Something else I found that was very reassuring on the quality is how many places the XenonDepot bulbs have markings on them telling you they are H11 and/or 5000K. This gives the consumer a good feeling in my opinion; it’s in the details.
As I was doing the install, I realized a difference between the bulbs I had and both the XenonDepot and Philips rebased bulbs. The part of the HID bulb that you twist to lock the bulb in the projector is longer on the XenonDepot and Philips bulbs than my previous bulbs (which were Morimoto). This really helps you get a grip to twist the bulb in. Another difference: the rubber on the part where you twist was very sturdy and tight. On my old bulbs the rubber was very loose, so when you twist, you can easily twist the rubber coating instead of the bulb. With my old bulbs, I had to use RoboGrips to help twist them in since I wouldn’t get them twisted all the way in with my hands. The XenonDepot and XenonDepot Philips bulbs twisted in by hand. They even have little impressions or contours for your fingers to go when twisting. It’s the little things that help differentiate a good kit from a great kit like this one. Here is a picture of what I am talking about:
So for my thoughts post-install: I am loving the kit to this point. The ballasts feel extremely durable and all the connectors fit together tightly. No play in any, which is refreshing. The bulb twists all the way in the back of the projector. The resistance is perfect, its not tight enough so you can’t finish the twist, but it is by no means even a hint at being loose. It twists in extremely securely, and locks in place, as it should. The bulb sealed up perfect with the rubber seal that comes with the bulb, so you don’t have to take the rubber seal from the halogen bulbs. The connection from the ballasts to the car’s plug is perfect. The two “click” when fully inserted and they seal up nicely. Even better – the kit did not have the polarity reversed, which is common with our cars. I just plugged it all in and it worked immediately, the first time, so no need to switch the prongs around (which if you have to isn’t hard at all, and the instructions even tell you how!). Here is how I prepared my ballasts for installation. I zip-tied the igniter and connector to the ballasts, making it so I only need to mount one thing. Tip: if you put some 3M Outdoor double sided tape on the underside of the igniter, it will make it a lot easier to zip-tie the plug and all the wires. Picture:
Now lets get to the fun part: how the kit looks! In my pictures, I may have some with the OEM halogen fog lights on. Bulb color can be hard to depict through pictures, so the halogen fog lights act as a constant, something to provide a fair comparison amongst different bulbs and different colors.
Here is a picture of how the Xtreme 5000K bulbs look head on:
Picture on the road:
Beam color:
So as you can see, the 5000k bulbs give a pure white light on the ground. There is no blue hue to the light whatsoever. This is the definition of a true 5000K HID bulb color. The amount of light on the road is intense. The beam seemed wider, due to the light being brighter all the way to the sides of the projector’s cut off. There are no strange hot spots or shadows in the light beam/pattern. Instead, it’s a very even, smooth light. The 5000k bulbs do have a blue line on the cutoff, with the blue being thicker on the squirrel spotters. That is normal and expected with a 5000K bulb. This blue line is called color flicker, and is something many people strive for when doing retrofits. OEM HIDs on high end luxury cars have color flicker even, so it is normal. Due to the color flicker of the 5000k XenonDepot bulbs and the squirrel spotters in our projectors, street signs are highlighted with moderately blue light. Unfortunately, pictures of the street signs reflecting the blue light in the cutoff would not come out right, so instead I took this photo so you can see the blue on the cutoff I am talking about:
^Picture taken at about 30 feet. I personally love this, as long as the blue stays out of the light, and stays on the cutoff. The XenonDepot 5000k bulb does just that. As of this part in my install, I was sure I was going to use the 5000K XenonDepot bulbs since it has all the attributes I love in a 5000k HID bulb.
So lets take a look at the XenonDepot Philips 85122 rebased HID bulbs.
Head on:
Picture on the road:
Beam color:
The 4300k Philips rebased color is warmer than the 5000k, which is exactly how it should be. However, the difference between the two bulbs’ on-the-road light color is not nearly as different as I had thought they would be. I would call the 4300k light color a warm pure white. Going from a halogen bulb, the 4300k is not only much brighter, but much whiter as well. The 4300k light was dispersed very smoothly onto the road, with no shadows or strange bright or dim areas. The 4300k Philips bulbs just look to be an extremely clean light. It’s crisp, intense, and radiant. It’s practically impossible to describe, but you can see the freshness of the light color, it sort of enhances all the colors that it shines upon. They look very close to that of an OEM HID of a Lexus IS. These bulbs are real German made Philips capsules, so after about 100 hours, they will have color shifted to be about 4700k. That is going to be perfect for me. I would like to have my bulbs a little whiter (cooler) than how the 4300k bulbs are now, but not necessarily as cool as a 5000k bulb. After the color shift, it should be right where I want it. One of the things I’m most impressed with the 4300k bulbs is their distance. These things shine far!
The 4300k bulbs have some slight blue on the cutoff as well. Not nearly as much blue as the 5000k bulbs. This is exactly how a 4300k bulb should look in my opinion:
^Pic at about 30 feet. However, when you get closer, the blue seems to fade a bit, showing how thin the blue on the cut off is:
This amount of blue on the cutoff produces a very OEM HID like color flicker when driving down the road. Not as crisp as OEM HID’s, but that is due to our halogen projectors, not the bulb. The 4300k Philips bulbs don’t illuminate street signs blue, instead they highlight the street signs in their native color. So a green sign pops green, blue sign pops blue, white sign pops white, yellow sign pops yellow, etc.
So I decided to use the 4300k Philips rebased bulbs for now. The sheer amount of light on the road is a tremendous improvement over my previous HID kit. In fact, the XenonDepot 5000k bulbs were a definite improvement as well. It just comes down to personal preference. I am a fan of the enhanced OEM look, and once the 4300k Philips bulbs color shift, that should be exactly what I have been searching for since I bought the car about 1 year ago. Here are some comparison pictures between the XenonDepot 5000k and the Philips 4300k for those trying to determine which they would prefer:
Now, here are some comparison pictures between some other brand’s bulb colors to the XenonDepot’s and rebased Philips’ bulb color.
First, the XenonDepot 5000k vs Morimoto 5000k vs DDM 5000k:
The pictures that include the fog lights turned on depict how the bulbs look in real life. The XenonDepot 5000k bulbs are the purest white with no blue in the light whatsoever. The Morimoto 5000k bulbs have more blue in the light, and DDM has a little more blue than the Morimoto in the light. All pictures were taken with the bulbs powered on the same ballasts, so ballasts are not a variable.
Here is a picture of a head on shot between the XenonDepot 5000k and the Morimoto 5000k. This picture is accurate to how the color of the lights looks in real life:
The Morimoto 5000k has a decent amount of blue in the light, which a true 5000k bulb should not have. The XenonDepot 5000k light does not have any blue in it’s light.
Now, lets compare the 4300k Philips rebased bulbs vs Morimoto 4300k:
It is kind of hard to see in the top line of pics due to varying angles, but the 4300k Philips rebased bulbs are whiter, and have less of a yellow tint to the light. The Morimoto 4300k, in my opinion, has the same light color as a normal halogen bulb, so it is pretty yellow. In real life, the Philips rebased 4300k looks significantly whiter than a normal halogen, again I point to the difference between a stock halogen bulb color and a Lexus IS OEM HID bulb color.
Well, in conclusion: I am very impressed with the XenonDepot Xtreme kit, with both Philips rebased and non-Philips bulbs. For me, most importantly, their bulb colors are true to their rating. There is no ground shadow on the bulbs either. Next, the ballasts are well built, seem durable, and all the connections fit securely. The kit was well packed, and even came with 3M double-sided tape and zip ties, cool. All components of the kit indicated a high level of quality, and it shows in the output of this HID kit. I would strongly recommend the XenonDepot Xtreme kit to anyone looking for a high quality plug and play HID kit. Installation was a breeze and the results speak for themselves!
I hope I have covered all possible bases in this review. If you have any questions about it, or would like to see anything more, just let me know! I have probably another 100 pictures, including comparison pictures between the bulbs themselves, output pictures, and some odd and end ones. Thanks for checking my review out!
***UPDATE***
I want to update this review to reflect how the Philips 4300k bulbs color shifted. The lights have gotten slightly cooler, so Kelvin has gone up, as it should. It is still warmer than the 5000k bulbs, however the gap has been closed some. There is a bit more blue in the cut off than before the color shift, so the color flicker is really cool. My friend has a white Tundra and as I drove behind him last night for a while it was so awesome to see the color flicker on his white tail gate! Still, the blue is 100% limited to the cutoff and it does not protrude into the light color at all. Upon arriving to our destination I asked my friend how the lights looked in his mirrors and he said like OEM HIDs. That is exactly the look I was going for, so mission accomplished!
I am extremely happy with how the 4300k Philips bulbs have color shifted. The differences are hard to pick up on a camera, but I tried. A few you can see how the color is cooler now that the color shift has happened, but others they look the same. When they look the same, I assure you its just the camera not being able to pick up the difference, but the difference pre- and post-color shift is definitely noticeable to your eye in person.
First: what makes a good HID kit good? The most obvious answer is if the bulb colors are true. Meaning when you order a 5000K bulb, is it really going to be pure white with no blue and no yellow? Or is a 6000K bulb going to be white with a slight blue hue? Etc. But to me, there are other things that go into making a good kit good. The quality of the kit shows itself in the details in my experience. Some other things I look at are: 1) How well are the HID kit components packed? 2) What protective measures are taken to protect the bulbs when getting jostled during shipping? 3) How are the connectors? Do they fit tight? 4) How are the wires protected?
So lets start with my initial impressions. The first thing I did when the UPS man dropped the package off was slightly shook it. I was feeling to see how tightly it was packed in preparation for the beating the box was going to take during shipping. As soon as I picked up the box, I was impressed with the weight of it. Not heavy, but definitely solid feeling. UPS label said 5lbs. Gave it the shake test – not a single sound. So then I opened up the box. No wonder why there was no jostle, it is a perfect fit:
Then open up the black box. Everything was packed very tightly. No jiggle room.
In the above picture, my 2 slim digital ballasts in white boxes are on the left, my XenonDepot 5000K bulbs in a white box are on the right, my 4300K Philips 85122 rebased bulbs are in the middle of the white boxes, and dual harnesses are in the front of the white boxes and Philips bulbs.
Here are the components included in the XenonDepot Xtreme HID kit:
Here are the components included in the XenonDepot Xtreme HID kit with Philips bulbs:
Detail picture of the ballast:
Detail picture of the bulb:
The bulbs were protected very well for shipping to ensure they did not get damaged. I am definitely satisfied with the level of protection.
Pictures of bulb protection:
To sum up my first impression thoughts: Impressive. If you order the Xtreme kit with Philips bulbs you even get a Philips manual, which reassures you that you are getting genuine Philips capsules. The bulbs are protected well, and the kit even comes with 3M double-sided tape and zip ties! I was impressed with the packaging. To me, when a company puts so much thought into the packaging and securing of their product, it shows they have a product they are really proud of. The ballasts have a really nice weight to them. Not crazy heavy, but they feel very sturdy, like you could mount them on a quad and have no issues. I’m feeling good about the kit.
Something to note about the Xtreme kit: it uses a dual relay system, so the kit comes with two relays. This is so if anything happens, you don’t lose both your headlights. Makes sense. You do not need to use the harnesses, and anyone who knows me knows that I did not use them! The kit works perfectly without them. But I assessed their overall quality, and would have been confident in them if I did decide to use them. Here are some pictures for reference (check out how well the wires are protected):
Now moving into the garage. I was trying to really dig into the kit a bit. Reading the installation manual, I read you can take the prongs out of the plug. This is in case of reverse polarity; you can remove the metal prongs, switch them, and reinsert them. This allows you to get a really good connection between the ballast and the car’s plug. All my other previous kits you were forced to just flip the plug and hope it stays or electrical tape the connection. What is even better is the manual even tells you how. Alright, lets do it and check out the prongs:
Sweet! Those red crinkle looking things are water and weatherproofing. No water or dirt can get in there. So far all I am seeing is quality.
Something else I found that was very reassuring on the quality is how many places the XenonDepot bulbs have markings on them telling you they are H11 and/or 5000K. This gives the consumer a good feeling in my opinion; it’s in the details.
As I was doing the install, I realized a difference between the bulbs I had and both the XenonDepot and Philips rebased bulbs. The part of the HID bulb that you twist to lock the bulb in the projector is longer on the XenonDepot and Philips bulbs than my previous bulbs (which were Morimoto). This really helps you get a grip to twist the bulb in. Another difference: the rubber on the part where you twist was very sturdy and tight. On my old bulbs the rubber was very loose, so when you twist, you can easily twist the rubber coating instead of the bulb. With my old bulbs, I had to use RoboGrips to help twist them in since I wouldn’t get them twisted all the way in with my hands. The XenonDepot and XenonDepot Philips bulbs twisted in by hand. They even have little impressions or contours for your fingers to go when twisting. It’s the little things that help differentiate a good kit from a great kit like this one. Here is a picture of what I am talking about:
So for my thoughts post-install: I am loving the kit to this point. The ballasts feel extremely durable and all the connectors fit together tightly. No play in any, which is refreshing. The bulb twists all the way in the back of the projector. The resistance is perfect, its not tight enough so you can’t finish the twist, but it is by no means even a hint at being loose. It twists in extremely securely, and locks in place, as it should. The bulb sealed up perfect with the rubber seal that comes with the bulb, so you don’t have to take the rubber seal from the halogen bulbs. The connection from the ballasts to the car’s plug is perfect. The two “click” when fully inserted and they seal up nicely. Even better – the kit did not have the polarity reversed, which is common with our cars. I just plugged it all in and it worked immediately, the first time, so no need to switch the prongs around (which if you have to isn’t hard at all, and the instructions even tell you how!). Here is how I prepared my ballasts for installation. I zip-tied the igniter and connector to the ballasts, making it so I only need to mount one thing. Tip: if you put some 3M Outdoor double sided tape on the underside of the igniter, it will make it a lot easier to zip-tie the plug and all the wires. Picture:
Now lets get to the fun part: how the kit looks! In my pictures, I may have some with the OEM halogen fog lights on. Bulb color can be hard to depict through pictures, so the halogen fog lights act as a constant, something to provide a fair comparison amongst different bulbs and different colors.
Here is a picture of how the Xtreme 5000K bulbs look head on:
Picture on the road:
Beam color:
So as you can see, the 5000k bulbs give a pure white light on the ground. There is no blue hue to the light whatsoever. This is the definition of a true 5000K HID bulb color. The amount of light on the road is intense. The beam seemed wider, due to the light being brighter all the way to the sides of the projector’s cut off. There are no strange hot spots or shadows in the light beam/pattern. Instead, it’s a very even, smooth light. The 5000k bulbs do have a blue line on the cutoff, with the blue being thicker on the squirrel spotters. That is normal and expected with a 5000K bulb. This blue line is called color flicker, and is something many people strive for when doing retrofits. OEM HIDs on high end luxury cars have color flicker even, so it is normal. Due to the color flicker of the 5000k XenonDepot bulbs and the squirrel spotters in our projectors, street signs are highlighted with moderately blue light. Unfortunately, pictures of the street signs reflecting the blue light in the cutoff would not come out right, so instead I took this photo so you can see the blue on the cutoff I am talking about:
^Picture taken at about 30 feet. I personally love this, as long as the blue stays out of the light, and stays on the cutoff. The XenonDepot 5000k bulb does just that. As of this part in my install, I was sure I was going to use the 5000K XenonDepot bulbs since it has all the attributes I love in a 5000k HID bulb.
So lets take a look at the XenonDepot Philips 85122 rebased HID bulbs.
Head on:
Picture on the road:
Beam color:
The 4300k Philips rebased color is warmer than the 5000k, which is exactly how it should be. However, the difference between the two bulbs’ on-the-road light color is not nearly as different as I had thought they would be. I would call the 4300k light color a warm pure white. Going from a halogen bulb, the 4300k is not only much brighter, but much whiter as well. The 4300k light was dispersed very smoothly onto the road, with no shadows or strange bright or dim areas. The 4300k Philips bulbs just look to be an extremely clean light. It’s crisp, intense, and radiant. It’s practically impossible to describe, but you can see the freshness of the light color, it sort of enhances all the colors that it shines upon. They look very close to that of an OEM HID of a Lexus IS. These bulbs are real German made Philips capsules, so after about 100 hours, they will have color shifted to be about 4700k. That is going to be perfect for me. I would like to have my bulbs a little whiter (cooler) than how the 4300k bulbs are now, but not necessarily as cool as a 5000k bulb. After the color shift, it should be right where I want it. One of the things I’m most impressed with the 4300k bulbs is their distance. These things shine far!
The 4300k bulbs have some slight blue on the cutoff as well. Not nearly as much blue as the 5000k bulbs. This is exactly how a 4300k bulb should look in my opinion:
^Pic at about 30 feet. However, when you get closer, the blue seems to fade a bit, showing how thin the blue on the cut off is:
This amount of blue on the cutoff produces a very OEM HID like color flicker when driving down the road. Not as crisp as OEM HID’s, but that is due to our halogen projectors, not the bulb. The 4300k Philips bulbs don’t illuminate street signs blue, instead they highlight the street signs in their native color. So a green sign pops green, blue sign pops blue, white sign pops white, yellow sign pops yellow, etc.
So I decided to use the 4300k Philips rebased bulbs for now. The sheer amount of light on the road is a tremendous improvement over my previous HID kit. In fact, the XenonDepot 5000k bulbs were a definite improvement as well. It just comes down to personal preference. I am a fan of the enhanced OEM look, and once the 4300k Philips bulbs color shift, that should be exactly what I have been searching for since I bought the car about 1 year ago. Here are some comparison pictures between the XenonDepot 5000k and the Philips 4300k for those trying to determine which they would prefer:
Now, here are some comparison pictures between some other brand’s bulb colors to the XenonDepot’s and rebased Philips’ bulb color.
First, the XenonDepot 5000k vs Morimoto 5000k vs DDM 5000k:
The pictures that include the fog lights turned on depict how the bulbs look in real life. The XenonDepot 5000k bulbs are the purest white with no blue in the light whatsoever. The Morimoto 5000k bulbs have more blue in the light, and DDM has a little more blue than the Morimoto in the light. All pictures were taken with the bulbs powered on the same ballasts, so ballasts are not a variable.
Here is a picture of a head on shot between the XenonDepot 5000k and the Morimoto 5000k. This picture is accurate to how the color of the lights looks in real life:
The Morimoto 5000k has a decent amount of blue in the light, which a true 5000k bulb should not have. The XenonDepot 5000k light does not have any blue in it’s light.
Now, lets compare the 4300k Philips rebased bulbs vs Morimoto 4300k:
It is kind of hard to see in the top line of pics due to varying angles, but the 4300k Philips rebased bulbs are whiter, and have less of a yellow tint to the light. The Morimoto 4300k, in my opinion, has the same light color as a normal halogen bulb, so it is pretty yellow. In real life, the Philips rebased 4300k looks significantly whiter than a normal halogen, again I point to the difference between a stock halogen bulb color and a Lexus IS OEM HID bulb color.
Well, in conclusion: I am very impressed with the XenonDepot Xtreme kit, with both Philips rebased and non-Philips bulbs. For me, most importantly, their bulb colors are true to their rating. There is no ground shadow on the bulbs either. Next, the ballasts are well built, seem durable, and all the connections fit securely. The kit was well packed, and even came with 3M double-sided tape and zip ties, cool. All components of the kit indicated a high level of quality, and it shows in the output of this HID kit. I would strongly recommend the XenonDepot Xtreme kit to anyone looking for a high quality plug and play HID kit. Installation was a breeze and the results speak for themselves!
I hope I have covered all possible bases in this review. If you have any questions about it, or would like to see anything more, just let me know! I have probably another 100 pictures, including comparison pictures between the bulbs themselves, output pictures, and some odd and end ones. Thanks for checking my review out!
***UPDATE***
I want to update this review to reflect how the Philips 4300k bulbs color shifted. The lights have gotten slightly cooler, so Kelvin has gone up, as it should. It is still warmer than the 5000k bulbs, however the gap has been closed some. There is a bit more blue in the cut off than before the color shift, so the color flicker is really cool. My friend has a white Tundra and as I drove behind him last night for a while it was so awesome to see the color flicker on his white tail gate! Still, the blue is 100% limited to the cutoff and it does not protrude into the light color at all. Upon arriving to our destination I asked my friend how the lights looked in his mirrors and he said like OEM HIDs. That is exactly the look I was going for, so mission accomplished!
I am extremely happy with how the 4300k Philips bulbs have color shifted. The differences are hard to pick up on a camera, but I tried. A few you can see how the color is cooler now that the color shift has happened, but others they look the same. When they look the same, I assure you its just the camera not being able to pick up the difference, but the difference pre- and post-color shift is definitely noticeable to your eye in person.